The debrief with Colonel Reyes ran long — she wanted every detail on the coordinated zombie pack twice over, and a full transcript of what Kane had said about the medicine, which she took down without any expression I could read. When she finally let us go, it was well past midnight, and I had exactly one thing on my mind that had nothing to do with the mission.
I hadn't talked to Emma in eleven days.
The comm system between bases was worse than I expected — one shared line per unit, booked in half-hour blocks, monitored, which meant I spent twenty minutes standing in a hallway that smelled like gun oil waiting for my slot before I finally got through.
"You're alive," Emma said, the second the line connected, and I could hear the relief under the dry tone she was trying to bury it in.
"Barely made a dent in that streak," I said. "You should see the other guy."
"I always should." A pause, static crackling faintly between us. "How's the fancy new squad?"
"Loud. Dustin's the only quiet one and he scares me a little."
"Good. Healthy fear keeps you alive." Her voice softened, just slightly, in a way I'd learned to listen for over the last three months. "Ash asks about you almost every day. I told him you got promoted again and he wanted to know if that meant you got a cape."
I laughed, and something in my chest that had been wound tight since the ambush this afternoon finally let go a little. "Tell him no cape. Just guns that are somehow worse for my aim than regular ones."
"I'll tell him you're working on it."
We talked for the rest of the half hour about nothing that mattered and everything that did — Ash's workouts, whether Ivan had actually beaten his own sparring record or just told everyone he had, whether the food at my new base was as bad as the food at hers. It was the first time in three days I'd thought about anything other than crystals, mana, or dead things trying to eat me.
"I miss this," I admitted, near the end, quieter than I meant to say it.
"Miss what, exactly? The half-hour of static and a two-second delay every time one of us talks?"
"You know what I mean."
The line went quiet for a second — not dead air, just Emma choosing her next words the way she always did when something actually mattered to her. "I miss it too. I didn't expect to. You're sixteen, Johnathan, and I'm supposed to be the responsible one who knows better."
"The world ended. I think the math on 'supposed to' got thrown out with everything else."
"Convenient argument."
"I've had time to work on it."
Another pause, and then, softer: "When you get leave — actual leave, not a stolen half hour on a monitored line — come see us. Ash needs it. I need it."
"I will," I said, and meant it more than I'd meant almost anything since the trumpets first sounded. "I promise."
The line cut a few seconds later, some automated voice informing me my time was up. I stood in the hallway a while longer, deagles still strapped to my hips, the smell of the day's fight still faintly on my jacket, and let myself feel, just for a minute, like a person instead of a weapon the army had decided to sharpen.
Ian found me there on his way past, headed for his own room.
"Girlfriend?" he asked, not unkindly.
"Something like that. It's complicated."
"Everything is now." He leaned against the wall next to me, arms crossed. "For what it's worth — you did good today. Both with the zombies and with Kane. Half the guys I trained with would've shot first and asked questions never."
"Might not have been the smart move."
"Smart's overrated. I'd rather fight next to someone who still thinks before he pulls the trigger." He pushed off the wall, headed down the hall. "Get some sleep, Corporal. Reyes already sent word — we've got another assignment in two days. Something about coordinated zombie activity near the eastern perimeter."
I watched him go, then looked down at the mana still humming faint in my core, the deagles heavier on my hips than they'd felt this morning, and thought about Kane's voice telling me I was still soft.
Maybe. But soft hadn't gotten anyone on my squad killed today. I could live with that trade a while longer.